Dhobi Ghat witnessed a high-voltage drama on Saturday night when a 24-year-old man was beaten up for snatching a woman’s gold chain and gulping it down the very next minute.

Dhobi Ghat witnessed a high-voltage drama on Saturday night when a 24-year-old man was beaten up for snatching a woman’s gold chain and gulping it down the very next minute.

The passers-by thrashed the chain snatcher so badly that he sustained multiple injuries and had to be rushed to the hospital.

The Agripada police have booked have booked Hussain Babu Shaikh in a robbery case following a complaint from the woman.

According to t he police, Shaikh, a Dhobi Ghat resident and habitual offender, snatched the gold chain from a woman who lives in the same area. The woman is a homemaker in her 40s

he police added that after snatching the chain, the accused started running. The woman screamed for help, which alerted the people in the densely-populated area. They immediately got to action and chased down the chain snatcher and started beating him up.

“In the commotion, Shaikh gulped down the gold chain immediately so that it could not be recovered from him. The next moment he told the people that he has not stolen any chain,” said an officer from the Agripada police station.

However, the act did not escape the alert eyes of some of the locals who saw him swallowing the chain. When they told the others that they saw him gulp the chain down, the people started beating him up. By this time, the police reached the spot after a local informed them about the incident. The badly injured Shaikh was rushed to Nair hospital.

A senior doctor at the hospital said Shaikh is stable. “Once his condition improves, the chain will be removed from his body by keyhole surgery,” he said.

The police have booked Shaikh under section 392 (robbery) of Indian Penal Code and will arrest him once the doctors discharge him from the hospital, another police officer said.